The highs and lows of another week in South Africa

Hello lovely readers...I hope you are all still out there!

Please leave a comment so I know someone is reading this thing!! It’s hard when you are talking to a wall...or rather, ‘posting’ on one.

Well it feels like an age since I wrote on here, lots has been happening, both good and bad...so I have been rushing around. Firstly, the lovely shopping trip I wrote about last time...turned out to be not such a success. The next day, the Sunday, as I was on my way out for the day to a friend’s baby’s baptism, I realised my passport wasn’t in my handbag. I was out for the whole day worrying about it and when I got home at 9pm I turned my house upside down looking for it...unsuccessfully. I went to bed hoping it was just that I was too tired and searched again in the morning. I looked everywhere! All round the Home and in the cars, asked all the children...then I went to town and went to all the shops I had been to. By this point I had run through all my memories of where I had seen my passport and what I had done, playing it over and over again in my head. I knew that I had it on Friday afternoon, and that it was gone by Sunday morning.
Playing over the trip to town on the Saturday I realised that was when it must have gone. I remember that there was a bit of a strange encounter with a man just outside the Kodak shop where I was going to collect my photos. It was quite busy in the mall and this man was standing very close behind me, so close that he stood on the back of my heel, but I remember it was weird because he did it a second time and didn’t apologise. It was odd the way he was so close to me, it wasn’t that busy...I thought he was trying to get round me so I tried to move out his way but he stayed right behind me...he bumped into me twice. I was trying to get out his way and I kind of staggered into the Kodak shop. I checked my bag for my phone and purse and when they were both there I didn’t think about it again. But now I am positive that is what happened...he must have thought he was taking a wallet or money, little did he know that it was a passport which is pretty useless to him but the most essential thing in MY life! So frustrating!

So on Monday I went round all the shops and asked the managers and security guards but no one had found anything. Then I went to the Police station to enquire but nothing had been handed in, so I filed a theft report and got an affidavit. I had spoken to the British embassy and knew that I needed a police report number to register a stolen passport and get a new one. The police station was a bit of an experience...the one in town is probably the tallest building I have seen round here...it is maybe 5 stories high, that is a skyscraper in African terms! Inside it was like a tacky 80’s hotel lobby, lots of fake orangey marble, plastic plants and dodgy prints in chintzy frames on the wall...at slightly wonky angles. I had to join a queue of about 6 people which was leading to this black marble-topped counter, kind of like a bar! It didn’t look like a police station at all...it was like they had just taken over use of a hotel, just removed the room key box from behind the encounter and there you have it! I was called forward to see a man who was about 50, wearing thick plastic rimmed glasses and a black leather jacket. He looked like a crap car salesman, but I guess he was some kind of police officer...He didn’t say anything to me when I approached...and I didn’t know how to start this kind of conversation! So I tried the traditional Zulu greeting of ‘Hello, how are you?’ the reply to which was a blank stare and silence...so...not the way to approach a policeman apparently! Then I just rambled out my story and he gave me a form which was the affidavit, to fill out what happened. I wasn’t even sure if he was understanding my English...so I just went to write down what I had said.

I had to sit on this stool at a low black marble counter with three little kind of cubicles where you could write without anyone looking over your shoulder. It was facing a big mirror sunk into this strange bit of low wall...probably replaced the tropical fish tank that was there back in its days as an African Fawlty Towers.

So I filled it out and waited while the car salesman-police officer wrote out an affidavit with the man next to me. The experience was topped off when the two of them poked their heads round the marble slab to ask for my help in translating the man’s problem from Zulu. They asked me ‘what is a female cow in English?’ I was taken aback as I thought this was some kind of rude comment about me!..when I had recovered from the shock I managed to splutter ‘heifer’ whilst trying not to laugh my head off. Who knows how the car salesman would have reacted to that, considering ‘how are you?’ wasn’t exactly acceptable. I thought I had a problem having lost my passport...but at least it didn’t involve a heifer. Thank God for small mercies eh?

So anyway, I have now sent off to cancel the current passport number and to apply for a new one, I think it will cost about £250 altogether, hundreds of handfuls of my own hair, and about 24hours spent in police stations and home affairs. Hopefully it will take 2 weeks, though I have my doubts considering it takes much longer in the UK and I am on ‘African time’ now...!
After spending the first 3 days of the week depressed and stressed over my passport, the last 3 days have been doubly good to make up for it! The weather was horrendous for 5 days, from Sun to Sat it just wouldn’t stop raining night and day, and was about 8-12degrees, felt freezing though! Especially as I only really have summer clothes with me. Everyone else was wearing tights, boots, coats and scarves and all I have are sandals, summer skirts and cardigans! I had organised a trip for the teenage boys to go away for the weekend, to spend the day in a game reserve seeing the animals, have a braai and go swimming. But at 7am the morning before I got a phone call to say that the river had burst and it was too flooded to go on a game drive or even to walk around. So the man has rescheduled for this Fri instead. I had 24hours to try and salvage the situation and still take the boys away...

I had organised for us to stay the night in the youth centre at a catholic mission up in the mountains called Maria Ratschitz. I rang them and asked if we could come earlier and have our braai there and just let the boys play in the grounds, they said they were happy to have us but that the rains had made the sand road dangerously slippery and that we might find it impassable with a bus!

So I went to bed on Friday very concerned about what the morning would bring, and if it was more rain then our whole weekend would be ruined – and my first attempt at arranging anything here would be a failure. But the weather looked like it was turning for the better and by 10am it was getting hot, the boys were asking if they could still go to the game reserve but I told them that was going to be Friday, and they will miss school so they are even happier!
We piled on the bus and went to town to buy the last bits of food for the trip. We got lots of treats to make a nice braai with steak and wurst and then bought icecream and custard for pudding...absolute luxuries to these boys! When we came off the tarmac road onto the dirt track it was virtually completely dry and we had no trouble travelling the last 15km up to the mission. It was so beautiful when we arrived! It is really green and lush, on a huge site which is all landscaped and really cared for with flowers and trees...such a change from the surroundings outside St. Anthony’s...which is basically a shanty town next to a busy road. The boys jumped straight off the bus and were playing soccer and running round in the sunshine. It looked like we were going to be successful after all!!

Until the crazy old German nun turned up...It was a bit odd because no one came out to greet us and we didn’t really know where to go or even where we were staying. So I went to find someone and came across...you guessed it...a crazy old German nun. She was about 70 and hunched over, she was wearing a dirty white apron and these massive, clompy Dr Martin boots, almost like what a builder wears. When I told her who we were she started getting angry because she said she didn’t know the group had two ladies in it [me and one of the careworkers] and that we were not allowed to stay in the centre with the boys. She said we should have told her – but the person I had been speaking to on the phone knew full well that it was 16 male and 2 female, they just hadn’t passed the message on. So she rushed off to this other cottage and said that me and Tuli must stay there, we followed her round as she paced up and down the cottage opening and locking various doors searching for a key to a second bedroom. She was jabbering away in a thick German accent and me and Tuli smothered our giggles as we watched her bustle around, muttering angrily – but about what, we didn’t know! She wasn’t very happy to see us though, that’s for sure!

In the end we found the sister who had taken our booking and we asked her if it would be ok for me and Tuli to stay with the boys, because otherwise the one male careworker would have to do all the work, and plus, the whole point was that it was a weekend away together. She said it was no problem and that there was even a separate smaller room where Tuli and I could stay alone. So, reassured that it was all fine we took the key and headed down to see our new lodgings.
O dear...’youth centre’ is a phrase which apparently covers a multitude of sins. It sounds so modern and encouraging...my how we were mistaken! We approached a long low cement building with a tin roof and a number of smashed windows. I unlocked the rickety door to find ancient bunk beds with thin and sagging mattresses, no pillows or sheets, dirty floors and very suspicious smelling toilets. The place didn’t look like it had been cleaned in a good few months...and the holes in the windows meant that a good few birds, insects and other things had been the most recent visitors. I could have cried!! I was so sorry that I had brought them to this place, thinking it was going to be a fun trip away – not a nightmare we just had to endure until we could go back home the next day...!

Mlondi and Tuli [the careworkers] tried to hide their disappointment...we all laughed nervously and went to show the boys their place for the night with heavy hearts. Mlondi made light of it by telling the boys before they went in that it was the most luxurious place he had ever seen...the sarcasm seemed to work and we were all soon laughing at just how bad it was. It wasn’t really any worse than camping when you thought about it, and it was a real adventure at least! The boys hardly batted an eyelid at the state of the inside, considering many of their backgrounds I’m sure they had all lived in worse conditions...staggering really. It had running water and electricity at least, much more than lots of homes in SA.

We were all really hungry as it was 3pm and we hadn’t eaten since breakfast but before we could have any food we had to go out and collect firewood for the braai and the stove. The boys kept winding me up by saying they could see snakes and by trying to throw insects at me or shove them down my back. Most of the time they were really just holding leaves but it was enough to send me running around screaming. The problem was the more I protested the more they chased me! We got back and it was a real team building experience attempting to cook a really nice meal for 20 people only using fire! The kitchen was soon choked with smoke and we were all struggling with very itchy eyes, it was unbearable! We lighted the fire 3 times and then had to give up, we couldn’t boil the water to make Pap [mealie meal which comes from Maize, mixed with water. It is the staple carbohydrate here.] Thankfully I had arranged that the sisters would provide us with supper and when the boys went to collect it they came back with a pot full of pap! So we sat down to a veryyyy late lunch at 7pm, but it was all the more delicious because we had waited so long and all slaved away making it. We ate marinated steak, wurst, pap and this tomato gravy [it makes pap taste really good but without it, it’s pretty tasteless and gross].

Then after dinner we went outside and sang Zulu songs and I attempted to join in the traditional dancing, it was really fun, and all in beautiful surroundings under a starry sky :) We went in at about 10pm and the boys chose a dvd to watch on my laptop, they all agreed on Lion King even though they have seen it before they really like it! It has so much Zulu in it, lots of songs are Zulu, especially if you listen to the stage show. It turns out ‘hakuna mattata’ is Zulu too!! How cool is that!

The next morning we went to church then went to climb the mountain which overlooks the mission. There is a huge white cross which we were going to climb up to, it looked so close from the ground but it was much harder than I expected. It was so hot, maybe 30degrees, and it was ridiculously steep. We were practically on our hands and knees the whole way up!
When we got to the top we had a discussion about the year they have spent at St Anthony’s, reviewing the best bits, the challenges and what they are all thankful for. It was really enlightening to hear them all say what they were grateful to the Home for. Some said they thanked God for bringing them to St Anthony’s so that they had a home for the first time in their life. They were all thankful for the skills they had been taught, cooking, cleaning, washing their clothes – because they now know how to look after themselves. I was surprised to hear so many say they were grateful for being taught good manners, to live someone where people didn’t swear, to be disciplined and taught that stealing is bad. They were all so grateful for this discipline and structure. They obviously have lived completely without the parental guidance I take for granted. Some of them have come for the streets or from child headed families where they have never had a parent teaching them right and wrong. It showed me how much progress they have made and how mature they are, that they are thankful for discipline and being taught morals – most kids would begrudge being told off, I know I would!

I was asked to say a few words and so I told them I was so thankful that they had welcomed me so warmly to St Anthony’s and that they have become my best friends and even my family since I came. Then I tried to motivate them to feel positive about themselves by telling them that they are so strong because they have endured such difficulties in their lives. That they are much stronger than me and they must all dream big because I know they can achieve great things in their lives. The night before I had spoken to Gerry, one of the boys who is going to leave soon as he is 18 now, and I was so moved to hear he wants to be a paramedic! I really want to help him achieve this dream, it is inspiring that he wants to have a job where he saves the lives of other people. I would love to help him get to college so that he can do the course to become a basic paramedic, it only takes 6months but he needs to get a drivers license first.

We climbed back down, which was maybe even harder than going up, and Ben – one of the boys – helped me down, holding my hand all the way as I kept falling! On the way down we saw a scary spider, I’m not sure what it is called yet, I’m searching for it on Google now...but they said it was a poisonous one. It was kind of pinkish colour, with light blue on it too, it wasn’t hairy but they said it was a young one. Pretty scary though!

After having lunch – provided by the sisters – we packed up and reluctantly headed back. They were all sad to leave, they had had such a good time and were really excited and playing on the bus all the way home. It had clearly been a fun weekend for them and they were all hyper and happy, was such a nice feeling to feel like I was the one who had provided them with such a nice weekend. I can’t wait for Friday’s trip to the game reserve, I am sure it is going to be sunny and am really hopeful it will be just as successful as this weekend. I love these boys so so much, I am really going to miss them when I go on holiday and home in January. I will be eager to come back in January to see them all and to enjoy a whole year living and working with them.